In critique of “being the hands and feet of Christ”
I wanna be Your hands I wanna be Your feet I’ll go where You send me I’ll go where You send me I’ll be Your hands I’ll be Your feet I’ll go where You send me I’ll go where You...
Reflections on Peace
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” –Mother Teresa I am a big fan of quotes and this is one that is particularly powerful to me. It is one that...
Movie Mondays
Guns, Germs, and Steel, 2005 (165 minutes) Based on the book by Jared Diamond of the same name, Guns, Germs, and Steel presents Diamond’s theory of why poverty is experienced in some places more than others. The film explores how...
Beech Bread
My mother loves to bake; from fruit pies to Swedish pastries her two ovens provide the best parts of Holiday meals. Ever since I can remember, one of my favorite recipes of hers has been Beech Bread. Until last week...
Joining the conversation about food aid
Last week one of the items of “Top Hunger News” featured on Bread for the World’s blog was this video, recently released by NPR, explaining the unintended impact that giving away free food has had on the local economy in...
What is poverty anyway?
As I was doing research for a paper I am writing on gender and development, I ran across an intriguing definition of the word poverty. Through my classes in college and my work at ELCA World Hunger I have done...
Smitten and trying to respond
“He smote the bank!” cackles Jean Stapleton, after John Travolta, as the archangel Michael, casually unleashes a bolt of lightning in the movie “Michael.” Earthquakes, oil spills, floods, droughts—there’s a lot of smiting going on, and a lot of preparing...
180 Degrees South
“The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life, it’s so easy to make it complex. The solution may be for a lot of the world’s problems is to turn around and take a forward step, you can’t...
Do you know Enough?
I am a book lover. I am always reading, and usually that means I’m working my way through five or six books at the same time. My dad laughed at me the other day as I explained to him which...
Moving from Oppression to Opportunity
The Book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is written by a husband and wife team who are former journalists for the New York Times, and through their travels found an issue that had been missing...